I wrote this earlier today. I’m doing better now thanks to my wife. She knows when something is wrong and she is the one I can truly talk to. She listens to me and helps me see things differently than how my bipolar brain makes me see things, especially during crisis. It is because of her that I’m still here. It wasn’t prayer. Keine Engel kamen um zu helfen. It wasn‘t some high-priced, over-paid, overrated shrink. It was my wife… her compassion and love for me that saved me. I‘m now experiencing the feeling of washout and emotional exhaustion that comes after crisis, but I‘m here to feel it. Being at the mercy/whim of poorly controlled bipolar disorder is exhausting. Trying to control a mind hijacked by disorder is like trying to herd cats… 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. Sometimes I‘m doing pretty good, and sometimes, like

I was going to go on a long rant regarding the House and the Senate both utterly failed, yet again, to represent the interests of the American people. Now, our sexist, racist, bigoted so-called “President” will sign it into law. The “it” being the extension of the NSA spying program. Instead of going off on that rant, I’ll just leave this link HERE and let you see for yourselves. I’ll instead focus this post on why I’m not going to rant about it.
I haven’t mentioned anything about it on the blog for several reasons, but now I’ll write about it a bit. I’ve picked up my Buddhist practice again. By again, I mean that I had stopped for a long time and looking back I can see the effect not practicing had on me and it wasn’t good. Now that I’m practicing again I feel better. It’s no miracle cure

Why do psychiatrists charge so much? It’s not a rhetorical question. I’d really like to know. I could understand it better if they actually did or told you something that was new or life-changing, but (in my experience) they don’t. They only tell you what you already know. Perhaps now and then it’s something you’d never really thought about because it’s simply part of your “normal” but not everyone else’s. But even that is rare. They may phrase things differently to make you see something in a different way but it’s certainly not life-changing. No, they do what every other doctor does and simply throw drugs at you. Drugs that have horrendous side effects. Psychiatrists differ from psychologists in that they are doctors who can and do prescribe drugs but have also gone to school longer to study psychiatry. They tend to look at things a bit differently than psychologists.

“You are a survivor.” Those are the exact words one of my shrinks said to me years ago. I think the words hold truer now even more than when he spoke them. I have survived the deepest, darkest places of my psyche. I have survived headlong plunges into utter madness and clawing my way back up again. I survived the night I put a loaded, chambered .45 to my head, pushing it so hard against my head it hurt. I don’t know why I put the gun down but the fact is that I did. I survived plans to hang myself. I have survived motorcycle crashes, one of them serious. So, yes, I think the shrink was right. I am a survivor. But now I am trying to more than simply survive… I am trying to thrive.
Over the last few days something has changed within me. It is impossible to

Within many meditative traditions “insights” are common, perhaps even the goal in some cases. The most well-known meditative traditions in the West are the myriad of Buddhist traditions and among them the top two most well-known, I would bet, are Zen and what is termed “Tibetan Buddhism”. The Buddhist traditions are not, however, the only game in town. Meditation has become so mainstream that it is being taught and practiced everywhere from the corporate world to the prison world. With good reason I might add because it works if done correctly and regularly. But it has also become so commercialized that words and phrases such as “mindfulness”, “being present”, “living in the moment” and so on have become mere caricatures of the wisdom they once pointed to. Whenever I see or read and advertisement using those words or phrases, or see an article with them in the title I catch

Fair warning: If profanity offends your sensitivities then be forewarned that this is a profanity-laden post. However, it’s a very important post… in fact, I would say that it is the most important post I’ve done on this site. So if you are one of those who are offended by profanity, please set that aside for just long enough to read this post. My emotions were very raw as I wrote it and therefore it is, to say the least, unbridled, unapologetic, and some may even call it confrontational. But when people are losing their lives because others aren’t listening to them on a scale I’ve never seen before, it’s time to put away the niceties and just call it as it is. I’m particularly aiming this post at you, Wise County, Texas and any other place that is so caught up in their radical religious beliefs that meaningful discussion

I’m considering shutting down this blog. There’s so much (and nothing) going on in my life at present. I’m trying to find focus but it seems an impossible task at the moment. By far the most read post on this blog is the Kawasaki Vulcan S review. It gets nearly all the hits every single day. While that’s fine I suppose I wish that readers would take a look at the other content here. Some do, but far and away the most attention is payed to that single post. In a way that is very discouraging because what is the point of maintaining a blog if only a single post out of over a hundred is being read? I realize I tend to go all over the place with my topics, that I don’t have a niche or a single interesting subject matter… I simply write about what happens to

Disastrous Doctor Visit
I went to see my doctor today. My PCP. I learned he doesn’t believe in psychiatry, mental illness, or anything of the sort. He said my problem was not physical, emotional, or mental. He said it is a “spiritual problem”. That everything I have been suffering for decades is simply because I haven’t chosen Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Yep. You read that right. When I pointed out that religious beliefs have nothing to do with mental illness and that Christians suffer mental illness on the same level per capita as non-Christians he replied that those who profess to be Christians but “have problems” such as these are merely “church-goers”, not real Christians. Real Christians, according to him, do not experience such problems because Jesus took upon himself all the problems in the world and overcame them on the cross. Obviously, this man has no business

It’s truly astounding just how quickly everything can become truly and utterly fucked up. If anyone is still reading this blog, they’ll have noticed that this is my first post in a very long time. At least it seems like a long time. Like ages. A lot has happened between the last post and this one and I’m trying to think of one part of it all that was good. I’m still alive so that’s good… I suppose. Anyway, I’ve been in what is called “crisis”. I’ve been doing everything I can to stay out of the fucking hospital where they put people that they simply don’t know what to do with. I’ve known people that have gone into those hospitals and I can say from personal observation and stories from those that have been in there that (a.) they don’t help anyone, much less “cure” them and (b.) people

Earlier today I read an interesting blog post regarding whether or not “paganism” is dying. My initial thought was, “who cares?”. If people decide they can no longer reconcile adopted beliefs with the mundane and objective reality of day to day life then they are freed in my opinion. I feel the same about any other religious belief. If an individual abandons beliefs that no longer serve them, and in some cases become detrimental, then more power to them I say. I admit I have become extremely jaded when it comes to any sort of religious claims. As I’ve written many, many times I simply have not seen or read anything that is in any way convincing to me that they are anything more than the subjective experiences or thoughts regarding things supernatural. The fact that I’ve never seen or read anything convincing to my mind perturbs me… it makes